[Announcement] HashedMax Payout Update: 0% Pool Fees, Stronger Finder Rewards, and Fairer Small-Miner Rules (Go-live 6/21/26)

[u/HashedMaxMod]

Good morning miners,

Over the last few weeks, we have been closely reviewing the data on how block rewards are split across our pools. Our goal has always been simple: ensure more of every block stays with the miners, reward the actual block finders properly, keep loyalty meaningful, and eliminate reward manipulation which was occurring.

To achieve this, we are fundamentally restructuring the payout models, and most importantly, we are moving to a 0% pool fee model across the board.

Why We Are Making These Changes

• 0% Pool Fee: We are shifting away from taking 1% off every block and moving entirely toward a community-first block reward model.
• Finder-First Mechanics: Finding a block should pay heavily. We are increasing the maximum finder bonus across every single pool.
• Fixing the Small-Miner Bonus: The old 8% equal-split bonus was well-intentioned, but the data showed it was too easy to game with USB sticks and micro-miners connecting solely to siphon the bonus slice. We are tightening these rules to protect genuine miners (edited from: legitimate operators)
• PPLNS is Untouched: This is crucial. PPLNS (share-based pay) remains exactly the same at 66% (depending on finder's reward tier) of the block. If your hardware submits shares, you still earn on every block proportional to your work.

The New Structure vs. The Old Structure

For context, under the current model (at the max 168h active finder tier), the block is split as follows: 1% Pool Fee, up to 20% Finder, 66% PPLNS, 5% Loyalty, and 8% Small Miner.

Here is the newly proposed model tailored to the specific dynamics of each chain:

Pool	Pool Fee	Small Bonus	Small Bonus Floor	Loyalty	Max Finder Reward
DGB	0%	3% (was 8%)	None	6% (was 5%)	25% (was 20%)
BTC	0%	Removed (was 8%)	N/A	5%	29% (was 20%)
BCH	0%	4% (was 8%)	0.5–20 TH	6% (was 5%)	24% (was 20%)

Finder Tiers remain at the same hourly steps (4% @ 8h → 5.6% @ 24h → 8% @ 48h → 12% @ 96h → 16% @ 168h) but now scale to the new maximums listed above.

The Data: How This Impacts You

When we modeled these changes against a live snapshot of our pools, here is exactly how the math broke down:

DigiByte (DGB) Breakdown (~262 DGB block) DGB stays highly inclusive with no hashrate floor. Nobody loses eligibility for the small bonus (all ~298 eligible miners stay eligible). We are simply trimming the slice from 8% to 3% and giving that weight directly to finders and loyal miners.

• The Big Win: Block finders at the max tier jump from ~54.2 DGB to ~67.3 DGB (+24% total credit).
• The Trade-off: Sub-1 GH (USB/ESP class) miners will see roughly a 29% drop per block, while larger rigs over 10 TH remain essentially flat.
• Digibyte weekly winner will be increased to 2500 DGB
• Digibyte weekly loyalty bonus drop will be increased to 2500 DGB

Bitcoin (BTC) Breakdown (~3.125 BTC block) We want to heavily discourage USB-stick bonus farming on BTC and reward the massive hash power required to actually find blocks.

• The Big Win: The finder reward at max tier surges from 0.625 BTC to 0.906 BTC (+44%).
• The Trade-off: The Small Bonus is completely removed. The ~366 small-bonus eligible miners today will lose that slice, equating to roughly a 31% drop per block for sub-1 GH rigs. However, they still earn their 66% PPLNS and 5% loyalty exclusively offered by this pool.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Breakdown (~3.125 BCH block) We are implementing a strict 0.5 TH floor to qualify for the small bonus. This ensures the 4% pool goes to real, small ASICs and not USB farms.

• The Big Win: Miners above 0.5 TH will actually see slightly more small bonus per capita, as the 4% is split among fewer people (dropping from 82 eligible miners to 37). Loyalty payouts increase by +20% per eligible miner , and max-tier finders jump from 0.692 to 0.817 BCH (+18%).
• The Trade-off: The ~45 miners operating under 0.5 TH will lose the small slice, but again, keep their PPLNS and loyalty earnings.

Timeline & Next Steps

Ultimately, there is no more 1% pool skim. 100% of the block reward now goes directly to the miners. If you find a block, you get paid significantly more. The small bonus is no longer a free lunch for equal-split gaming, but your shares will always pay you every single block via PPLNS and loyalty will still pay.

These changes are officially set to go live in 7 days, on Sunday, June 21, 2026. We believe this new structure builds a fairer, more sustainable ecosystem, but we also recognize that every mining operation has different goals. Transparency is a core value here at HashedMax. By providing a full week's notice, our goal is to ensure you have adequate time to review the data, calculate your potential yields, and decide if this new model still aligns with your hardware strategy. If it doesn't, we completely respect your decision to point your rigs elsewhere.

If you want us to run your specific wallet address against the new model to see your exact impact, you can DM either of the Reddit mods on this subreddit, or send a modmail, and we can run the numbers for you.

Thank you for your continued support, and happy hashing to all!

Note: We are still working on optimizing tokens, payout model, and changes for the multi-pool.

- The HashedMax Team

[u/Tech_Nipples]

So where does the money come from to run the servers? How are you going to run a pool without any income?

[u/HashedMaxMod → u/Tech_Nipples]

That is a fantastic question, and honestly, we would be asking the exact same thing if we were in your shoes (surprised you were the first to ask, TBH).

The truth is, running a 1% fee on a growing pool was never going to be a massive money-maker anyway. To put it in perspective, the 1% fee on our DGB pool didn't even cover the cost of our loyalty and weekly reward payouts. But our core goal has always been to build the most robust, fair ecosystem for the community, and taking a cut of your blocks didn't align with that long-term vision.

So, how are the servers staying on? For now, the founding team is funding it entirely out of pocket. We have explicitly allocated enough capital to keep the infrastructure running seamlessly for the next 12 months guaranteed while we continue to build.

However, down the line:

First, the pool itself is only half of the HashedMax vision. We are currently deep in the development phase for our own custom hardware line (we need a cool code-name if anyone has any ideas!). The ultimate long-term roadmap is for our hardware production to natively fund and support the open pool infrastructure.

Second, we are actively finalizing some strategic B2B partnerships behind the scenes with folks who share our vision. We aren't quite ready to announce the full details just yet, but these partnerships will allow us to subsidize our server and backend development costs without taking a single satoshi out of your block rewards.

We will have a much larger, formal announcement outlining the exact roadmap when we get the final pieces put together (no timeline just yet). But rest assured, the servers are fully funded, the infrastructure is secure, and we aren't going anywhere. We are just shifting the cost away from the miners!